____________________________________________________________________________________ Craig S. Robson
[email protected]
October 6, 2026
VIA EMAIL
Patrick Q. Sullivan
Office of City Attorney
City of Torrance
3031 Torrance Blvd.
Torrance, CA 90503
Email: [email protected]
Re: Request for Meeting — Unpermitted Food Resale and Proposed Amendments to the Cottage Food Ordinance
Dear Mr. Sullivan:
As you know, this office represents several members of the Seaside Ranchos neighborhood.
We have reviewed the staff report and proposed Cottage Food Ordinance scheduled for consideration by the City Council on October 6, 2026. The expanded environmental discussion in the proposed ordinance raises several concerns that we believe warrant further consideration before the Council makes the proposed CEQA findings and adopts the ordinance.
We are not attempting in this letter to provide an exhaustive CEQA analysis. Given the timing, we simply want to identify several threshold legal and factual issues that we believe deserve consideration by your office and the Council before action is taken.
In our view, these issues are substantial enough that considerably more analysis is warranted before the City can adequately make the proposed findings that the ordinance would cause no reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change and, alternatively, that it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility of a significant environmental effect. The City's own analysis acknowledges potential additional vendors, customer activity, and vehicle and pedestrian trips; the ordinance itself contains provisions directed at controlling many of the resulting impacts; and the City has years of actual experience with these conditions during the Holiday Lights period.
Our purpose in raising these issues now is to give your office and the Council an opportunity to consider them before the ordinance is adopted, rather than after.
The City's own analysis identifies reasonably foreseeable indirect physical changes.
The analysis itself, however, acknowledges that the amendment will cause increased trash requiring homeowners to provide trash receptacles, daily disposal of customer-generated waste, potential loitering, and other issues arising from the same. Yet, the proposed ordinance concludes 1 PUBLIC COMMENT REPORT #3
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____________________________________________________________________________________ Craig S. Robson
[email protected]
under CEQA Guidelines section 15378 that the amendment would not cause a direct physical change or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment and therefore does not constitute a CEQA “project.” This conclusion is unsupportable.
In Union of Medical Marijuana Patients, Inc. v. City of San Diego (2019) 7 Cal.5th 1171, the California Supreme Court explained that an activity may constitute a CEQA project when, by its general nature, it is capable of causing a direct or reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change. The threshold inquiry is distinct from the later determination whether particular effects will actually occur or will be significant. Indeed, “CEQA embodies a central state policy to require state and local governmental entities to perform their duties ‘so that major consideration is given to preventing environmental damage.” (Id. at p. 1185.)
Here, the causal relationship does not appear merely hypothetical: the City's own analysis recognizes the potential progression from legalization of front-yard salesto additional participating operators, to additional customers, to additional pedestrian and vehicle trips. At minimum, this raises a serious question regarding the proposed determination under Guidelines section 15378.
Common-sense does not support the idea that significant impacts are “not expected.” The proposed ordinance alternatively relies on CEQA Guidelines section 15061(b)(3). That exemption applies where “it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility” that the activity may have a significant effect on the environment.
In Davidon Homes v. City of San Jose (1997) 54 Cal.App.4th 106, the court found, as here, “the ordinance included only a conclusory recital that the project was exempt, and the record was devoid of any evidence on possible environmental impacts from the invasive geological studies ordered as part the ordinance, except for the objections of the challenger. It is incumbent upon the agency to consider possible environmental effects and to produce substantial evidence to support an exemption.” (Id. at p. 106.)
That circumstance is present here. Residents have repeatedly raised specific concerns involving traffic and parking, pedestrian and sidewalk congestion, public-right-of-way obstruction, first-responder access, customer congregation, and customer-generated waste. The City also has its own historical experience with Holiday Lights conditions and cottage food enforcement. The question therefore is not whether the City was required to commission any particular traffic or environmental study. The more basic question is: what evidence in the administrative record supports the City's repeated predictive conclusions? The staff analysis states that the amendment would not be expected to result in a significant increase in traffic or parking demand and is not expected to result in significant additional traffic, 2 ____________________________________________________________________________________ Craig S. Robson
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parking, noise, lighting, waste, or other physical impacts. Those conclusions deserve particular examination when the same analysis acknowledges possible additional operators, customer activity, and incremental pedestrian and vehicle trips.
This ordinance will operate outside of and beyond December.
The fact that the expanded outdoor activity is limited to December is repeatedly cited as a reason its effects will be limited. In Seaside Ranchos, however, December is not an ordinary month. It is precisely the period during which the Holiday Lights attract extraordinary pedestrian and vehicle activity into a residential neighborhood and during which the City already devotes substantial Police, Code Enforcement, traffic-control, sanitation, Public Works, Engineering, and other resources to existing conditions.
Accordingly, limiting outdoor sales to December does not necessarily eliminate the concern. It places the expanded activity into the period in which existing pedestrian, traffic, parking, sanitation, access, and enforcement conditions are at their high. The City's historical experience during that period therefore appears particularly relevant to the proposed findings.
The City's own resource and enforcement record deserves consideration in evaluating the proposed findings.
The Council materials themselves describe substantial City resources devoted to Holiday Lights conditions, including Police, traffic control, Code Enforcement, sanitation, Public Works, Engineering, and related activities. The City's prior public materials have also recognized traffic congestion, first-responder access, extra trash containers, and vending enforcement as conditions requiring City support.
The City has additionally documented repeated cottage food violations, including repeat violations. That history is relevant where the environmental analysis relies in part on new behavioral restrictions to limit the effects of expanded outdoor sales.
Keeping the point of sale on private property does not necessarily keep the resulting effects on private property. Customers may arrive by vehicle or on foot, use public sidewalks and streets, congregate near participating properties, and generate waste. The record should therefore address the actual operation of the ordinance in the setting in which it will apply, rather than unreasonably assuming that the location of the transaction itself confines all resulting activity to the parcel.
Further analysis is warranted before the proposed findings are made.
We are not suggesting that every additional pedestrian trip, vehicle trip, discarded cup, or customer standing near a residence constitutes a significant environmental effect under CEQA. 3 ____________________________________________________________________________________ Craig S. Robson
[email protected]
The issue is the substantially different proposition the City must establish to rely upon the common-sense exemption: that it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the ordinance may have a significant environmental effect.
California Farm Bureau Federation v. California Wildlife Conservation Board (2006) 143 Cal.App.4th 173 explains that remote or outlandish possibilities do not defeat the common-sense exemption, but legitimate and reasonable questions concerning possible significant effects are inconsistent with the certainty required by the exemption. Specifically, “if legitimate, reasonable questions can be raised about whether the project might have a significant impact, the agency cannot find with certainty the project is exempt.” (Id. at p. 194.) Here, the City's own analysis acknowledges additional participation, customer activity, and pedestrian and vehicle trips. The City's historical record documents unusual existing conditions during the very month in which expanded outdoor activity would be authorized. The ordinance itself contains operating restrictions specifically addressing pedestrian obstruction, neighboringproperty interference, customer congregation, and waste.
These circumstances warrant closer examination before the Council makes findings that there is no reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change and, alternatively, that it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility of a significant environmental effect. Given these issues, we respectfully request that the Council not make the proposed CEQA findings or adopt the ordinance without first allowing the City Attorney's Office and appropriate staff sufficient time to evaluate these questions and the evidentiary basis for the proposed findings.
We appreciate your consideration and remain available to discuss these issues.
Sincerely,
Craig S. Robson
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